CUMMING — In the first matchup between the high school schools in their football histories, West Forsyth took down Norcross for their first win of the season on Friday.

In turn, the Blue Devils found themselves in the loss column for the first time this season with a 23-13 setback to West Forsyth (1-1).

In the long run, Norcross head coach Corey Richardson thinks his team will be fine due to the hard work they put in. However, there will be things on both sides of the ball to iron out for the Blue Devils (1-1).

“We did a lot of good things tonight, but as a team, we did not play our best style of Norcross Blue Devils football,” Richardson said. “We go into an off week. We’ll clean it up, and sometimes losses like this early, that isn’t necessarily a negative thing all the time because, again, you can evaluate things and look to get better.”


On the first drive of the game, Norcross lost the ball on a fumble, and it was recovered at the 26-yard line in its own territory by West Forsyth.

The Wolverines found the end zone shortly after when quarterback Brody Cato connected with wide receiver Andrew Spaulding on an 18-yard pass. After the extra point, they had an early 7-0 lead, their first in a game this season.

The Blue Devils stumbled on yet another drive, and their special teams added insult to injury with a major blunder. The snap got past the punter, who was forced to kick the ball out of bounds at the 6-yard line, resulting in a penalty. West Forsyth declined and set up a first and goal to start its second drive of the night.

Norcross’ defense held and the Wolverines settled for a 23-yard field goal from Caden Frank, and a 10-0 lead.

Another costly penalty came for Norcross in the second quarter, this time on defense. A roughing the passer call set up the Wolverines with a first down on the 36-yard line in Blue Devils territory.The Wolverines turned that into a field goal that brought the score to 13-0.

In an effort to get on the board late in the second quarter, Blue Devils quarterback Luqman Baig took a shot down field that was picked off Wolverines’ safety Hollis Horwege with 10 second left in the half inside the 10-yard line. The game went to the half with score still at 13-0.

After a long drive to start the third quarter from West Forsyth that ended in a punt, Norcross marched down the field. A mostly run-heavy attack was capped off with a touchdown pass by Baig to Davis Marschke to bring the score to 13-7 following the kick. Two big runs from Baig to start helped spark the drive, taking Norcross from its own 36 to West Forsyth’s 37.


The Wolverines didn’t need much time to answer back. With 2:31 left in the third quarter, Frank kicked a 32-yard field goal extend the lead to 16-7.

They added to the lead once more on a 19-yard touchdown run by Morgan with 6:04 left in fourth quarter. The point after try made it a 23-7 game.

The Blue Devils weren’t going to go down without a fight. Baig carried the ball himself 11 yards on the following drive for a touchdown with 3:18 remaining to make it 23-13. The visitors went for the two-point conversion to get within a score, but the pass was incomplete.

“He’s done well. He works hard,” Richardson said of Baig following his second start as the varsity quarterback. “I think I said it last week. He’s going to go back to the drawing board, see his mistakes, look to improve.”

In an effort to stay in it, Norcross went for an onside kick, but West Forsyth recovered and ran out the clock.

After a week off, Norcross will be back on the road to face North Atlanta on Sept. 11 at 7 p.m. Meanwhile, West Forsyth returns to action next Friday at 7:30 when they head to Lanier.